India, April 4 -- The men who jumped off bridges, drank poison, or hanged from ceiling fans because they couldn't repay a Rs.2,000 or Rs.10,000 loan never made it to the pitch decks. But they should have.

One of them was a 21-year-old fisherman from Visakhapatnam, whose wife's morphed photographs were circulated by digital loan recovery agents. Another was a 50-year-old schoolteacher from Alibag who jumped to his death from Atal Setu in February this year. He had borrowed Rs.12,000 which he couldn't repay in time, and was chased by agents who allegedly sent doctored nude photos to his family. A third case surfaced in Thane, where a man died by suicide after harassment over a Rs.1.8 lakh loan.

None of this was supposed to happen. India's...